Families with disabled children travel more than 4,000 miles a year to access services

Charities including Scope, 4Children, the Family and Parenting Institute, Sense and the National Autistic Society have come together to urge the Government to include a ‘Provide Local Principle’ in the Children and Families Bill.

The Queen announced in her speech in May plans to introduce a Children and Families Bill early next year, which will include measures to address the difficulties that parents of disabled children face in trying to access the services they need.

While the charities welcome the requirement on local authorities to publish a local offer of services within the Bill, they claim this can be strengthened by ensuring that services for families in a local area are inclusive and accessible.

The ‘Provide Local Principle’ would see a duty on local agencies where services don’t exist to commission and guarantee the delivery of them. It would also mean that support for family relationships and proximity to home would be a priority when planning and evaluating local services.

A survey of more than 600 parents and carers of disabled children by the charity Scope found that more than six in ten respondents said they were not able to access all the services they and their child need in their local area.

Almost half of parents or carers said they had to wait a long time to access services locally, with one in seven being able to get all the services they need.

The Scope Keep us Close Policy Report says that cuts to local authority budgets have meant that early intervention services are being reduced and because of this families are having to travel further afield to get the support their children need.

Families who took part in the survey reported an average distance travelled of 4,300 miles a year or 84 miles a week to access one or more services.

Being unable to access local services also has a severe, negative impact on families with disabled children warns the charity. More than half of families reported that not having a local service stops them from working and 50 per cent said they miss out on family activities as a result.